by James Scott

jscott@thekmgroup.co.uk

Campaigners are celebrating after the National Grid announced that plans for power lines stretching through the Kent countryside have been blocked.

There had been fears about scores of 150ft high pylons being built to carry 95 kilometres of cables through the North Downs and the Weald from Lydd on Romney Marsh.

Although an exact route was not outlined, it was feared the overhead lines would run through the Tenterden, Romney Marsh and the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

However the energy company's plans to create a new sub-station connecting to Dungeness power station, along with power cables linking it to Rowdown near Croydon, have been blocked by the Government.

National Grid spokesman Antony Quarrell said: "We had an agreement to connect the proposed generation scheme at Dungeness C. However the scheme did not make it through the government’s strategic review on future nuclear power stations."

The proposal has been criticised by Protect Kent, the county branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which said the lines would vandalise the Kent landscape irreversibly.

Spokesman Jamie Weir said: "CPRE Protect Kent welcomes the fact that the National Grid no longer plans to scar this particular area of countryside with rows of massive pylons."

The countryside protection charity is also frustrated that National Grid refuses to invest in more underground power lines, which are more expensive than overhead cables.

"We are unhappy that National Grid has consistently refused to look to the future of our country's energy infrastructure by investing in underground lines as so many of its European peers are now doing," said Mr Weir.

"It is shocking in this day and age that a progressive forerunner such as the UK can still be blighting the aesthetic value of the landscape with pylons when it is utterly unnecessary, and we hope that National Grid will reconsider and begin planning for the future, rather than simply thinking about profit."

Mr Quarrell said Britain was facing a challenge in meeting projected energy needs over the next few decades.

"With many power stations due to close in the coming years new energy infrastructure must be built to ensure that people continue to enjoy the safe, secure and reliable energy supplies to which they have become accustomed," he said.

He added that National Grid was committed to full and open public consultation on any future proposals for new infrastructure.